Computer Generated Solutions, a New York City developer of enterprise software, yesterday announced that Weyco Group, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based designer and distributor of men's shoes, will expand its use of the IBM i-based ACS Optima ERP system to support its expansion in Australia.

Weyco Group sells several lines of men's shoes to specialty retailers and department stores, including the Florsheim, Nunn Bush, Stacy Adams, and Umi brands. In addition to distributing the shoes to stores, Weyco sells them online.

For nearly 20 years, the $225 million company has run its core business systems on the super-durable and ever-fashionable IBM i platform. The company's ERP product of choice has been ACS Optima, which bundles order fulfillment, production, materials management, warehouse management, sales-force automation, business intelligence, and shop-floor control capabilities in a single integrated package.

Now, the company is planning to expand its ERP system, and to standardize the Australian operation under the same ACS Optima system that's served Weyco's Milwaukee headquarters so well for most of the last two decades.

George Sotiros, vice president of IS for Weyco, explains that standardizing on a single platform "will allow the company to leverage synergies between U.S. and Australia from a systems stand point," he states in a press release. "This will not only help us update and upgrade current systems in Australia, it will enable us to streamline business processes and reporting."

CGS--which curiously doesn't have any information about ACS Optima on its website, and didn't respond to a request for information before this newsletter's deadline--says Weyco expects its Melbourne office to go live on ACS Optima during the first half of 2011.